EGAS intends to issue int’l outbidding to explore gas, oil

CAIRO – 6 February 2018: Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) intends to issue an international outbidding to explore natural gas and crude oil in 11 concession areas during the first half (H1) of the current year, an EGAS official told Al-Shorouq newspaper.

The unnamed source said that EGAS got the security approvals to issue the outbidding.

He added that the concessions would include eight sea areas and three land areas.

In January 2018, EGAS Chairman Osama al-Bakly announced that the company is planning to issue an international outbidding to explore natural gas and crude oil in the Mediterranean Sea and the Nile Delta in H2 of 2017/2018.

Egypt will achieve self-sufficiency of natural gas before the end of 2018, with gas production amounting to six billion cubic feet of gas a day, Petroleum Minister Tarek El-Molla announced last year.

Egypt’s Petroleum Ministry aims to increase its annual production of gasoline, diesel, butane gas and jet fuel by 11.6 million tons in the next four years, at an investment of $8.3 billion, boosting total production to around 28.5 million tons, up from the current 16.9 million tons.

Egypt targets producing 3.113 million tons of gasoline, 6.603 million tons of diesels, 481,000 tons of butane gas and some 1.438 million tons of jet fuel over the next four years.

Egypt officially started operating the Mediterranean’s largest gas field, Zohr, at the end of 2017, at a capacity of 350 million cubic feet a day.